When The Cracks Begin to Show
by The Red Celt
Summary: The stresses of war have been getting to the both of them, and Garrus knows that it's only a matter of time before the pressure makes her explode. Shepard takes out her frustrations on the one person who will forgive her for it afterward. Rated T for language.


_AN: I remembered that I had written this and not published it when I saw a prompt on the kinkmeme asking for Shepard and Garrus having a knock-down-drag-out screaming match. Since this doesn't fit exactly what the OP was looking for, I posted it here instead. I have a soft spot for watching Shepard break down, and I hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it. :)_

* * *

Shepard leaned over the console in the war room after the Primarch left and tried to clear her head. There were about a billion things she needed to do, and they were all starting to feel like a big, staticky white noise buzzing through her brain. Garrus came up beside her and she hoped he would just put an arm around her, or something that didn't involve talking. Or moving. Or making any difficult decisions that impacted the populations of entire planets. If she could have just ten minutes of quiet, everything would be okay.

"How are you holding up?" he asked. "I'm starting to see some wear and tear."

"I'm fine."

She could feel his skeptic look boring into her head and it was giving her a migraine. "You should go get some sleep."

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," she said. She had to fight to enunciate every word, her mouth just as burnt out as the rest of her.

"Shepard—"

"I told you, I'm fine."

"The crew is perfectly capable of operating without you for a few hours."

She gritted her teeth. The sound of his voice, normally soothing, was grating on her nerves. Ten minutes, was that too much to ask for? "It's the middle of the day cycle, I don't really need a nap."

"You need to—"

Shepard wheeled around and glared at him. "What I need, Garrus, is to be left alone. Okay? Please?"

His mandibles drew in tight to his face. "I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Well, I can do that well enough on my own, thanks."

"It doesn't look like it. Seriously, you're like death warmed over."

She muttered a long string of curses and rubbed her face. "You're not faring a whole lot better yourself. Maybe you should lay off your calibrations for the rest of the day. But no, you can't even pry yourself away from that fucking console long enough to look at me when I walk in the room, so why would you take a day off?"

"The guns need to be adjusted for maximum accuracy and output, you know that."

"I know that a .43% improvement is really not worth all the hours you spend in that room."

"Every little bit helps."

"Not when it's such a little bit. I should really find you another job to do, since you obviously can't figure out what to do on your own."

He was trying not to get angry—he knew that she was under a lot of stress and was probably taking it out on him—but she knew just how to get a rise out of him. "You're right, maybe you should delegate some of your authority to your underlings," he said, putting special emphasis on the last word. "Or don't you trust us with the important jobs?"

"I would if I knew you wouldn't get all hormonal and screw it up."

"Oh, because you never mess anything up?"

"I do, but not as bad as Archangel did."

"Uh huh. And Akuze was a resounding success, was it?"

She was gaping like a fish and Garrus was fuming so hard he looked about ready to burst into flames. The crew had already left them alone, and they had the room to themselves.

"You asshole."

"Bitch."

"Crusty dinosaur."

"Filthy pyjack."

"You don't get to tell me what to do, I am your commanding officer. Is that understood?"

"I _will_ tell you what to do when I think you're in danger of running yourself into the ground." They were chest to chest, glaring at each other. "You can't command if you're not at the top of your game."

"In case you haven't noticed, Earth is on fire!" She shoved him back and he stumbled against the railing.

"So is Palaven! So are a lot of other planets!" he shouted.

"Which is why I can't afford to take a fucking break! I need to be out here, arranging all of this shit," she yelled, jabbing her finger at the display of viable war assets. "The turians needed their Primarch, then Palaven needed the krogan, then Wrex needed a female so he can have a cure for the genophage, and Mordin . . . Mordin, he—ALL THIS SHIT!" She picked up a datapad and launched it at the holograph of the Crucible. "ALL THIS FUCKING SHIT, and meanwhile, everything I ever knew is gone!"

Garrus watched grimly while she took every pad from the stack and threw them as hard as she could. Angry tears flew from her eyes and she grunted with the effort of hurling her projectiles until she got to the last one and went still, breathing hard. The datapad fell from her limp fingers and clattered to the floor.

"I need to hit something. Now."

Garrus started walking out of the room, and turned back to her when he reached the door. "Might as well be me. Come on."

* * *

"Clear the room!" Shepard hollered as soon as the doors opened onto the Normandy's cargo bay. The few crew members that were there, including Vega and Cortez, turned toward her but hesitated a second too long. "I said clear the fucking room! That's an order!" They bugged out in a hurry after that, and soon the bay was empty except for her, Garrus, and Liara, who looked up at Garrus with concern etched on her blue face. He just nodded and sent her out, too, watching her leave before turning back to Shepard.

She was ripping off pieces of her armor and dropping them to the floor with shouts and roars of anger. One of her greaves got caught and she pulled at it in frustration until it came free, then hurled the offending hunk of metal across the room where it hit the wall with a dull thunk. She raked her fingers through her hair, digging her nails into her scalp and panting. Without a warning, she spun around and drove her fist into the side of the shuttle with such force that she split the skin of her knuckles.

Garrus just watched, waiting for her to start talking. She'd hate doing it, but she knew better than most that keeping rage like this bottled up never did anyone any good. Being the captain and commander meant staying in control, no matter what that meant or what it cost.

"God fucking dammit, I'm done watching people die. Fuck the Reapers, fuck this war, I'm tired of this shit." She drew back to punch the shuttle again, but Garrus grabbed her wrist and turned her to face him. At some point, he'd taken off his own armor and stood there in his black undersuit. He brought his fists up and stared at her until she did the same, and without a word they started circling each other, looking for an opening.

"People die, Shepard. Mordin died a hero, and that's more than most can say." She lashed out and he had to quick-step to the side to avoid a blow to the shoulder. He countered with a hook to her side, and she couldn't get out of the way in time. The solid hit (he'd pulled it a little, but not much—she didn't appreciate being treated like glass just because they happened to be sleeping together) must have hurt, but she relished the pain. It took away some of the rage that was festering in her, and she needed more. Even if she woke up covered in bruises tomorrow, it would be worth it.

"I actually thought about trying to stop him from going," she said with a grunt as she threw punch after punch at him. She noticed that he was in a mostly defensive posture, taking each hit without countering, and in her sudden masochism that was not acceptable. "Stop blocking and hit me!"

"You want me to hit you?" he asked, unflappable as ever. He was too calm, and it infuriated her.

"Don't hold back for my sake, dammit, fight back!"

"And what good would that do, Jane?"

She roared and lashed out at him again, catching a glancing blow on his undamaged mandible but he acted as though he hadn't felt it. "It—it would—" She didn't want to think, not now. Down that path lay deadly snakes and snaring vines. "I need it, I don't know why! Please, just hit me."

"I don't want to hurt you." His eyes were so full of sympathy, but that was too close to pity for her tastes.

"Did I tell you that Councilor Valern called me before we left?" she asked, goading him a little. It was petty as hell, and it only served to stoke the anger within her that wasn't the vengeful kind she was used to; this anger was cold and hard and overwhelming in its scope. "He told me to sabotage the genophage cure in return for the salarians' forces. He wanted me to sacrifice the krogan for his political bullshit!"

"But you didn't." He was beginning to understand now, and his heart ached for her.

"But I thought about it." Her punches were beginning to lose their form, and her anger was crumpling in the face of something else, an emotion for which she had no name that was strong enough. "Because what if they were the linchpin that would win the war? What if I let the cure fail and the krogan died out, but trillions more were saved? What if I saved the krogan, but doomed everyone? _Everyone_, Garrus! The entire galaxy is counting on _us_, on _me_, to not fuck this up, and I can't help but wonder if I just lost us the war."

The desperation was beginning to show in the corners of her eyes, the way she wasn't even seeing what she was doing anymore. Tears welled up in her eyes and she roared, a broken scream of frustration and the last strings holding her together slowly unraveled.

"Hit me, fuck you and your restraint, _hit me_, because I can't—I don't want to-" She stumbled back from him and went still for a long second, her eyes wide and darting wildly. He started to go toward her, but she held up a hand to keep him at bay. She didn't want comfort, she deserved every bit of this for considering breaking Wrex's trust and committing genocide in return for some well-trained troops. The mantle she wore was too heavy, and it was breaking her down. She leaned against the shuttle and looked up into the lights, then a desolate moan escaped her throat and with it went the floodgates that had been holding everything back and she collapsed to the floor, her shoulders convulsing with wracking sobs.

Garrus dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her but she couldn't bring herself take her hands out of her hair; she was gripped with the irrational fear that if she stopped holding her head together, the tenuous control she was clinging to that kept her from slipping into a nervous breakdown would break.

When she finally began to calm down, Garrus stroked her hair and rested his chin on her head. "Do you think you made the right decision?"

She was silent for so long he didn't think she was going to answer until she whispered, "Yes."

"The krogan are free for the first time in almost two thousand years because of you, and if that's not a victory then I don't know what is. And it's what Mordin wanted; he knew what was at stake, and he sacrificed himself for what he thought was right."

"But I might have sacrificed us all." Spirits, she sounded so small. It had taken the death of one salarian scientist to send her over the edge, but he was determined to bring her back. Back to him and, although he hated it just as much as she did, back to this war because there was no one else out there who had a chance to save them. So he'd keep her going and help her bear the burden until they both shattered under the weight of it because that was what they did. All he could do was help her pick up the pieces afterward.

If there was an afterward . . . but he wouldn't let himself think like that.

"Even if you did, even if we lose, we'll lose on _our_ terms, not the Councilor's." She nodded, her hair tickling his mandibles, then looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

"I could never do this without you, Garrus."

"I know." _And I could never be this strong for anyone else but you_, he thought but didn't say. He wasn't a man of sentiment, but she knew him well enough to fill in the blanks he left.

"Sorry for being such a bitch."

"S'okay. You may be a bitch, but you're _my_ bitch, and I love you anyway." That got her laughing, and the last of the tension between them ebbed away.

After she'd gotten herself more or less back in order, he gave her one last kiss before they strode, shoulders squared and heads held high, out of the cargo bay and back into the thick of it—Shepard in front with that unmistakable aura of strength wreathing her and Garrus, her second in command, close by, guarding her six. The way it should be, and the way it would stay until the end. Just like old times.


End file.
